Walter Leo Hildburgh

Born in New York into a family that had arrived in America earlier that century, he gained a Ph.D. at Columbia University with a thesis on alternating current.[1] Of independent means, he was then able to continue his scientific studies and become an international-level figure-skater and swimmer, serving as a judge at the 1931 World Figure Skating Championships.[2] Taking a long trip through Japan, China and India as his first trip abroad in 1900, he travelled extensively to Europe, the Middle East and Asia. He also began collecting early in his life, both not only metalwork, decorative arts and sculpture but also folkloric objects such as amulets. In 1902 he began keeping notebooks with his own ideas as well as literary quotations and information from art dealers. He mainly based himself in London from 1912 onwards and only briefly returned to America after that date.[3]

He also gained an early interest in folklore, making generous gifts to the Folklore Society, becoming one of its council members in 1909 and its president from 1948 to 1951.[4] In 1950, he presented incomplete set of copies of his articles to the Society's library, with a list of them in its journal Folklore later the same year. He also donated objects to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Victoria and Albert Museum, UCL Institute of Archaeology and British Museum, including the Hildburgh Madonna, Hercules and Antaeus, the Cordoba Treasure and one of the Aldobrandini Tazze as well as other sculptures, English alabaster reliefs and examples of German, Dutch, Italian and Spanish silver- and gold-working.[5] A plaque in his memory was installed inside the main entrance (Room 60) of the V&A in 1957.[6]